


Paths Out

by hellhounds4sale



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 18:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10972707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhounds4sale/pseuds/hellhounds4sale
Summary: There's a Voice in his head, a voice that's old and powerful. He aches with misery at the sound of it, a deep rooted thing that claws at the very center of him, claws open old, still painful wounds he can't remember getting. The Voice tells him to keep walking, to keep going. Whispers about redemption and penance and how very important his job is. Tells him he can't fail again, not this time. So he walks.





	Paths Out

He burns. Heavy fire in his veins, agony in every slow, labored step he takes. His very essence sings with the screaming pain that's his only existence. He can't remember who he is, why he's here, where here even _is_. He only knows it hurts, and that he must keep walking forward.

There's a Voice in his head, a voice that's old and powerful. He _aches_ with misery at the sound of it, a deep-rooted thing that claws at the very center of him, claws open old, still painful wounds he can't remember getting. The Voice tells him to keep walking, to keep going. Whispers about redemption and penance and how very important his job is. Tells him he can't fail again, not this time. So he walks. Blindly places one foot before the other despite the agony of his existence.

There's others with him in this place, he catches glimpses of them from the corners of his eyes, hears the faint sounds of their shrieks as they scramble away from him. The Voice doesn't pay them any mind though, so he doesn't either. Keeps moving forward instead, slow and awkward from the pain but forever moving.

**THERE**. Says the Voice. He lifts his head, blinks the blood from his eyes and sees nothing. **UP**. Says the Voice, and he tilts his head obligingly. There's a box, hanging slick and black against the void. **GO TO IT**. Says the Voice. He doesn't know how, and an aching sense of horror at disappointing the Voice fills him. It hurts worse than anything else ever has.

**YOU HAVE WINGS**. Says the Voice, and for a moment it almost seems kind. **USE THEM**. And oh, he _does_ have wings. He never noticed them before, or maybe they just weren't there before at all, but still, he lifts them from where they drag against the ground behind him. Opening them wide and full. They are not good wings. Tattered and broken, charred black and it hurts so much to spread them. Not as much as disappointing the Voice did though.

His wings beat, and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. He burns, and every move of his torn wings sends another wave of pain through him. It takes forever, but he refuses to stop. Can't stop. The Voice murmurs softly in his mind, gentle words of encouragement, between harsh demands that he **HURRY**. **KEEP GOING**.

Eventually, he reaches the box, and hovers before it, wings beating heavily, pain arcing through the threadbare remains of his being. He waits for the Voice to tell him what to do. Up close he can see the bars set flush against each other, the thick chains and locks that wrap around and around it, all of them the same inky black as the box itself.

**REACH INTO THE CAGE**. Says the Voice. He doesn't understand. There's no entrance to reach through, just black bars and chains pressed close against each other. **YOU DON'T NEED A DOOR**. Says the Voice. **YOU ARE THE DOOR**. **REACH IN**.

He does. Reaching out with a hand caked with blood and dirt to press his fingers against the blackness of the cage. For a moment he feels the bars under his skin and then it breaks under the pressure of his fingers and his hand slides slowly into the cage. He wonders what fearful thing would be locked away in a cage like this. He wonders if it will hurt him. And if it could ever hurt him more than he hurts already. **KEEP GOING**. Says the Voice. So he does, beats his tired, torn wings to press closer until his arm slides into the cage up to his wrist, to his elbow, further until his chest is pressed against the cage, arm sunk up to the shoulder in its inky blackness. It's cold, like ice and the pain of it would make him shake if he hadn't been doing so already.

Something curls around his hand, something warm that sends tingles of sensation up his arm, and then he feels fingers lace with his own. **PULL**. Says the Voice. And he does, tugs with all the strength he has left in him against the sucking pull of the cage until slowly, _agonizingly_ slowly his arm slides free. For a moment his grip slips and panic hot and terrible fills his chest and then the hand around his own grips tighter and **NOW** yells the Voice in his head.

The cage makes a terrible crunching noise, and then his arms are full of warmth and light and it _burns._ He screams, voice a ragged broken thing, as his wings finally snap under the added weight, bones cracking and useless flesh tearing at the seams.

They fall.

Agony lances through his back, as wind and the terrible blackness of the void presses in against his broken wings. He clutches the perfect creature of light closer to his chest, even as his skin burns where it touches him. His chest aches and his cheeks are wet with tears. He can't remember the last time he cried. Can't remember if he's ever cried? The ground looms ever closer and closer and closer still as they plummet towards it, and he curls himself protectively around the creature, doesn't need the Voice to tell him that it must be protected. No matter what.

His last act - before his back hits the ground with a sickeningly wet crack - is to pray that his broken body will protect it from the damage of the fall.

.

.

.

He wakes to warmth and a soft voice. Gentle hands that stroke across his skin and it-

It doesn't hurt. His eyes open and he remembers. Their Father's Voice has faded from his head, but Michael's hands are careful as they cup his face. The Archangel Michael is light and warmth, and he burns with it so terribly and beautifully when he leans in to press a kiss against Gadreel's lips.

It burns. But it does so perfectly.

 


End file.
